Nancy Scheper-Hughes is an esteemed anthropologist, educator, and author. She holds the title of Chancellor's Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Scheper-Hughes is revered for her significant contributions to the field through her leadership as the director and co-founder of the PhD program in Critical Medical Anthropology, alongside Margaret Lock.

Her scholarly work encompasses a wide range of subjects, including the anthropology of the body, hunger, illness, medicine, motherhood, psychiatry, psychosis, social suffering, violence, genocide, death squads, and human trafficking. Among her notable publications are Death Without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Ireland, Commodifying Bodies with Loic Wacquant, Violence in War and Peace with Philippe Bourgois, and Violence in the Urban Margins, co-authored with P. Bourgois and J. Auyero.

Scheper-Hughes's extensive anthropological fieldwork spans across several countries including Northeast Brazil, Argentina, Israel, South Africa, Moldova, the Philippines, and the United States. As the founding director of Organs Watch, she serves as a consultant on human organ trafficking to prominent institutions such as the European Union, Interpol, the United Nations, and the Vatican. Her dedication to uncovering and testifying against the illicit organ trade has led to multiple FBI arrests, highlighting her role as a pivotal figure in the fight against human trafficking.